


The Ghost in His Reflection

by ncisduckie



Category: Ghost Hunt
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No SPR, Cemetery, Gen, Grief, Melancholy, Mourning, Neutral Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25042231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncisduckie/pseuds/ncisduckie
Summary: Mai meets the so-called ghost haunting her local cemetery and reminds him how to live.
Relationships: Taniyama Mai & Oliver Davis
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	The Ghost in His Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you talk about writing a cemetery AU in the GH discord and someone beats you to the punch *glares at waitingforjudgement*. Kidding (read hers if you haven't). Joking aside, please enjoy my take on a cemetery AU!  
> Join us in the discord and also steal my plot bunnies :') : https://discord.gg/9DxQHBp

Mai Taniyama's favorite part of her graveyard “security” shift at the local cemetery wasn't that she could do her homework on the clock. Or that she could take naps during her nightly look-out. It wasn’t even that she paid an exorbitant salary for what was essentially... a fake job.

It was the ghost that haunted the foreigners' section.

To be fair, he wasn't actually a ghost. He was a mourner. She’d seen him exchange short greetings with the other late-night patrons that visited the nearby plots enough to know he wasn’t some sort of apparition or figment of her imagination. He arrived every night at midnight, sat down at the same grave, and stayed until dawn. His schedule was as steady as her work schedule--something she could admire. He must really love whoever was buried there.

He was a pleasant normal in Mai's nightly routines; he’d been visiting since before she was hired and she wagered he’d be there long after she left. Having someone consistent in her life, even if they never met, made the whole “security” job a little easier. He helped her keep time while she was on the clock. This was especially helpful when she accidentally fell asleep when watching the security cameras. As long as her ghost was still there when she woke up, she was fine. If he wasn’t... it meant she had to rush through her early-morning duties before going home. 

She had checked the plot her ghost visited one morning on her way out.  _ Eugene Davis _ , the gravestone read.  _ 1994-2019.  _ There weren’t any other engravings or messages like any of the other graves in the section. 

Instead, there was a large, framed mirror bolted into the granite.

* * *

Mai Taniyama’s least favorite part of her job was the teenagers. Specifically, the teenagers who thought that the best use of their time was to traipse through the plots on “ghost hunts”. Because, apparently, the cemetery was the only place in Tokyo that could possibly be haunted for real. Normally, she didn’t bother dealing with them. She tried once, the first time she saw them on the security feed, but they seemed harmless enough. The extent of their make-believe usually started and ended with checking out the first row of plots before some noise scared them off.

However, one night their antics managed to extend beyond the first few rows of plots. Farther than any of their expeditions had ever gone before.

Mai hesitated. It was a little chilly outside and she was just about to call it quits with her school reading for the night and opt for a nap. A nap was so much better than trooping out into the cold if they were just going to back out at the first sign of anything spooky. She leaned in and focused hard on the security feeds. As long as they didn’t make it past the first quadrant, she reasoned, there was no reason to step away from her warm, cozy office.

The passed the first quadrant. 

And the second.

With a heavy heart, Mai realized exactly where they were headed. The foreigner’s section. 

She jumped up from her desk, grabbed her coat and a flashlight, and rushed out the door. Her thoughts were stuck on her ghost, who still had two hours left in his visit. Whatever these kids were doing, they better have a good excuse. Catching up with the kids took longer than she would have liked. She hadn’t expected weaving through the hilly grass would have taken so much out of her but by the time she was behind the teens she was out of breath.

“Do you think he’s actually a ghost?” one of the teens whispered. “What if he’s an actual person?”

His friend shushed him. “Nobody visits the cemetery in the middle of the night. Do you see anybody else here?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “No? Ghost. Now stop being a scaredy-cat and get the airhorn ready.”

_ Airhorn _ ?! What did an airhorn have to do with ghost hunting? Mai ran until her legs ached and she was finally right behind one of the teens. “Hey!” she yelled. 

The boy she grabbed flinched away from her grasp and shouted. “I didn’t do anything!” he yelled back, panic evident across her face. But when he turned to face her, his fright disappeared. “Who are you?”

His friends dispersed in a series of loud shouts. They turned to Mai with bewildered expressions. “Ghost!” their leader yelled. “It’s a ghost!”

Mai’s hands settled on her hips. It was clear to her that this ghost thing wasn’t anything more than a joke to these kids. First Naru was a ghost--now her? What’s next? The angel monuments? “What do you people think you’re doing interrupting a stranger’s mourning? Is this some kind of joke to you?”

Their leader hesitated. “You’re telling me... he’s not a ghost?”

He pointed to the gravesite where Naru sat. Even through the commotion, he didn’t look up from the plot. She knew that in dim moonlight, unmoving, he did seem like a ghost. Not to mention, she  _ did  _ call him a ghost. But that didn’t mean it was okay to disrupt him for the sake of entertainment!

“If you don’t get out of here right now, I’m calling security,” she yelled, forgetting for three seconds that she was, in fact, security. “And  _ they _ will call your parents and have you explain to them why you’re in a cemetery at three in morning!” To punctuate her shout, Mai occupied her best glare and directed it at the teens.

“Dude, let’s get out of here!” their leader called. Their panicked agreement echoed in the empty cemetery as they turned their heels and ran toward the exit.

Mai waited until they disappeared from sight before letting her legs collapse from under her. She fell to the ground, digging her fingers into the grass. She really hated confrontation in a place as peaceful as this. Not to mention... the so-called ghost still hadn’t reacted. "You know, a ‘thank you’ would be nice," she muttered under her breath. 

“I don't believe I asked for your help,” he said cooly. To Mai’s surprise, he spoke in unaccented Japanese. She expected him to speak in English due to the engraving on the gravestone. "I could have handled a few teenagers," he continued without looking back.

"Of course Naru-chan is a jerk,” she groaned softly. She had pictured him being a gentle person after countless nights watching him grieve at this plot every night. But he didn’t even deign to look at her when speaking. She was zero for two; both her assumptions about the man had been glaringly wrong. “How would you have stopped them with your back turned, oh Great One?”

Finally, he turned to face her. "Do you know me?"

“Be--Beyond seeing you every night on the CCTV?” She tripped over her words as she finally took a look at her ghost’s face.  _ He’s beautiful. _ Or, at least, he would be if he didn’t wear that severe frown. "No?"

If he had realized she was affected by his countenance, he didn’t express it. Instead, his brows furrowed as he continued to stare at her. "Then why call me that?"

She started calling him “Naru” in her head after learning about the mirror on the gravestone he visited. Sure, it may be rude to describe someone as a narcissist when she never met the guy. But the one thing she  _ did _ know is that by him visiting this plot every night, he had to see himself in the mirror all the time. How could he stand it if he wasn’t at least a little narcissistic?

"It's just, every time I watch you, you're staring into that mirror. And... And I didn't know who you were??? So, I named you ‘Naru’. Cause, you know, narcissist?” The excuse sounded bad when she said it out loud. She pivoted to something that, maybe, didn’t make her sound like a fool. “Oh, you know, or like, Narcissus? I... I read that in my English Lit class this term and, like, I probably butchering the meaning because English is my worst subject. But it fit? Kinda?" He didn’t react. “Maybe?” she prompted, hoping the next words out of his mouth wasn’t a passive-aggressive insult. 

"Where do you go to school?" he asked.

“I go to Toyo,” she said, holding her breath. If he was a foreigner, would he even know where she was talking about? The international exchange students she’d met on campus only heard of the school after failing to get into Todai. 

He nodded. "Degree path?" 

She hesitated. If she felt like a fool earlier, now she felt like a downright idiot. "... English Lit?" 

He snorted, covering a small smile with his fist. Mai couldn’t help but notice the expression made him look a lot better. Younger. It warmed her. 

"You're an idiot, in any case," he said.

“Of course I am; why else would I be working here?” Mai huffed. Who did this guy think he was? Not to mention--why did he have to look so good insulting her? "No student in their right mind would willingly work at a cemetery  _ in the middle of the night _ ."

He turned away from her to face the grave once again. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

“I do my rounds before you arrive and after you leave,” she admitted, her cheeks burning.

He hummed in acknowledgment but didn’t reply. His reflection looked contemplative and Mai quickly realized that her answer gave him the wrong impression.

“Not because I was trying to avoid you or anything!” she said. “I’m only trying to respect your grieving. I’d do it for... I’d do it for anyone if they kept as consistent a schedule as you do. Which, I mean to say, is very admirable, you know. I only visit my parents’ graves on for holidays and, like, birthdays and stuff. I couldn’t do it every night--I don’t have the devotion. Or the time, I suppose..”

Once again, he didn’t say anything. But he didn’t tell her to leave him alone, either, so she continued as if he was participating in her weak attempt at a conversation. “And speaking of Narcissus, did you know that most of the western literary canon has influences in only three sources? The Bible, Greek Mythology, and Shakespeare?” She hesitated, remembering the English written on the gravestone. Even if he spoke Japanese, that didn’t mean he was Japanese. And even if he was it didn’t mean he was raised here. He could have easily been a foreigner like the person buried here. “Maybe you knew that?”

"Me, personally, I think that’s very boring. But, like, who cares about my opinions? That’s what I keep thinking as I get ready to finish school. For my last year, I’ll have to do a big paper on a piece of English lit. I’m thinking, like,  _ Dracula _ because vampires. And... and the...” Well, she was going to say ‘mirror’ but now probably wasn’t the best time that all this time watching him inspired her to write about mirrors and pale monsters for her final paper. She motioned to the gravestone. “It’s a very beautiful mirror, by the way.” 

“The plot belongs to my brother,” he said, thankfully ignoring her awkward topic change in favor of his own. “He died in a car accident.”

Mai held her breath. She knew he would stop if she asked questions. But she had a million!

“He was my twin, to be precise. Identical.” His eyes shifted in the mirror and he looked to her through the reflection. “Our parents thought the mirror would remind people that he isn’t truly gone. As long as my face reflects on his gravestone--we know Gene is still with us. We know how he would have grown older because you can see him in me.”

“Well,” she found herself saying, “that’s not fair to you.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked wryly. “I’m the one who survived, aren’t I?” 

His words twisted a knife in her chest. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t said anything at all. “You were...” The words lodged in her throat; she should have ended the conversation right there. But she couldn’t speak, much less move. “You were...”

“I was in the car,” he finished for her. He turned from the gravestone and met her eyes. She flinched when his gaze landed on hers; his eyes were cold. “One twin, dead on impact. The other, unscathed.”

She shivered and cursed when she noticed the tears blurring her vision. Somehow, she knew he wouldn’t appreciate her turning into a bubbling mess in front of him. She wiped the tears away and tried to keep the tremble out of her voice as she dared to speak again. “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I’m  _ so _ sorry.” 

He sighed like he’s heard this a million times. Perhaps he had. “Don’t apologize; these are the cards I’ve been dealt.”

“That’s not fair! You’re your own person!” The tears trailed freely down her cheeks now and the more she tried to speak, the more she found herself incapable of finding words. “Why do you have to bear the burden of your brother’s memory?”

He didn’t say anything.

Instead, he sat quietly and watched as she continued crying. It felt silly to her to cry when he was so obviously unaffected by the whole ordeal. A stranger’s sympathy was the worst kind of pity. There was no doubt he regretted talking with her in the first place. And that made her heart ache even more. 

“I have to be going,” he said finally when her sobs settled down to weak hiccups.

“But--” She looked at her watch, her vision still blurry with tears. It was only 3:30. On a different day, she would be waking up from a nap right about now. “You don’t normally...”

“Early lecture,” he interrupted, pushing himself up.

“Oh.”

“It’s not worth crying over a stranger’s grief,” he said, flicking her forehead as he walked past. “One day someone will try to abuse your kindness; don’t let that happen to you.”

She nodded and wiped her tears. Such cynical words, but what did she expect?

“Study hard, idiot.”

“Okay,” she said mindlessly, still fighting her sniffles. It wasn’t until he was already walking away that she processed what he said. Hey! “My name is Mai, by the way!” she yelled. “Mai Taniyama!”

He raised a hand before disappearing into the darkness.

* * *

When Mai arrived for her next shift, she ran straight to Eugene Davis’s plot. Naru wouldn’t be there for another few hours but she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t stop thinking about what he had told her and how severely unfair the whole situation was. How was a girl supposed to focus in class when her mind kept circling back to what happened the night before? But Mai’s grievances shifted to astonishment as she finally stopped at the familiar gravestone.

The mirror had been painted over with black.

Swallowing hard, Mai knelt in front of the grave and reached to touch the shining void. The paint was wet. Her fingers were black when she pulled her fingers away.  _ He was here _ .

She whipped her head to check behind her but the cemetery was empty. Just like it always was at this time of night. She sighed, forcing down the disappointment crawling up her chest. There was no reason for her to expect to see him waiting, and yet...

Mai sighed and pushed herself up from the ground. She wiped the paint on her jeans and tried to focus on the brighter things. Except, when she worked a job like this, the only bright thing to look forward to was the sunrise. And that wouldn’t come for hours. She turned to cast another glance over the darkened cemetery before looking back to Eugene’s grave one last time.

“Rest in peace, Eugene,” she said, resting her hand on the top of the gravestone. “Please don’t be angry with your brother.”

An unmistakable warmth filled her body and she knew, somehow, her plea was heard. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes but she wiped them away, remembering what Naru told her the night before with a laugh. And just as she was about to turn to head to her post in the main office, her eye caught a flash of white stuck out from the side of the frame. 

She frowned and plucked paper free from its confinement. A business card? It was a nice card, too. Much nicer than most of the cards she’d seen flashed around student mixers. But what caught her attention were the words ‘ _ For Mai _ ’ written across the top in beautiful handwriting. She smiled, reading down the card to find “Naru’s” identity and contact information embossed with satin-black ink. 

_ Dr. Oliver Davis _

_ Staff Fellow in Psychology at the University of Cambridge _

_ Specialist in Experimental Psychology  _

Mai flipped the card over and found more of his neat handwriting printed across the creamy cardstock:

‘ _ Thank You _ .’ 

**~ FIN ~**


End file.
